


Tunnel Vision

by Inkpress00 (rabidgopher)



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-12
Packaged: 2018-03-10 21:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3304076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabidgopher/pseuds/Inkpress00
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A stroll on a peaceful planet goes awry when the Doctor and Rose stumble across the consequences of a transmat fallen through time and space. But what of the displaced trio they find on the wrong planet? And how did the broken tech manage to get into the endless, planet-wide mine shaft system?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Rose popped her head into the console room for the third time in what must have been as many hours. Timekeeping devices worked strangely on the TARDIS, so she generally relied on the Doctor to tell her how long had passed. “Are you done yet?” she inquired, raising her voice enough so that he could hear.  
  
“What’s that?” came his echoing, but oddly muffled, reply. “No, hold on.” He slid out from underneath the controls. “What?”  
  
Resisting the urge to laugh at the grease smudge that resembled another eyebrow directly above his left, Rose repeated her question.  
  
His face fell minutely. “Oh. No, not done yet. She miiiight not be entirely thrilled with me, since-” he cut himself off, and Rose nodded, the last of his sentence painfully clear. Since the pit.  
  
Rose cleared her throat. “So, were you really working on the flux capacitor, or were you just pulling my leg?” she asked with a tremulous smile.  
  
The Doctor’s grin came back full-force. “I would never!” he exclaimed, though both of them knew this was blatantly untrue. “One of the few things Robert Zemeckis got right about time travel, actually. Wanna take a look?”  
  
Rose laughed. “I’m good. Maybe some other time.”  
  
“Well, Miss Tyler, you are missing out.” To punctuate his point, he poked her on the nose.  
  
Rose wrinkled up her nose. “Don’t get me all greasy.” She swiped at her face and came away with a smear on her fingers.  
  
“Well, go wash it off and by the time you’re done, we’ll be on the fourth moon of Hasdeen.”  
  
Rose pouted. “Are you saying I take a long time to get ready?” Before he could formulate an answer to that, she had left the console room. “I’ll only be five minutes!” she called, her voice echoing through the TARDIS. The Doctor smirked at her back and set the controls for travel.

  
***

  
“You know, you took more than five minutes,” the Doctor told her cheekily as they strolled over the carpet of shade-dwelling flowers on the forest floor. His coat brushed the very tops of the small fuchsia blossoms and stirred them with the air it displaced.  
  
Rose nudged him with her elbow. “You liar,” she teased.  
  
He nudged her back. “Would this face lie to you?” His eyes went wide to feign innocence, a wide smile revealing dazzling teeth. He was suddenly close enough that she could pick out every freckle dotted across his cheeks.  
  
Laughing, Rose pushed at his chest. “You’re so full of it.” She made a point to give him a once-over. “Maybe not this face.”  
  
The Doctor’s smile turned impish. “Maybe you should meet some of my other faces, Rose Tyler. Then you’d know who could spin a tale.”  
  
“I-” Rose stiffened, the feeling of being watched prickling across the back of her neck.  
  
“What is it?” he muttered, noticing how her playful demeanor had drained out of her. His eyes shifted around. “Rose, what-”  
  
A branch crackled somewhere from the direction they had come. Rose’s hand darted out to cover his mouth, but the Doctor’s suddenly fearful eyes seemed to be drawn to her neck. She lifted a hand to feel the spot when she noticed a dart lodged in his own neck.  
  
She glanced at her hand, only to see thick droplets of blood clinging to her fingertips.  
  
The Doctor started to try and catch her as she swayed, but his own movements had turned sluggish and he ended up just knocking them both to the ground.  
  
“Rose,” he croaked, sounding strained. “The dart- pull it… pull it out.”  
  
She honestly tried to comply, she did, but her arm just wouldn’t cooperate. When she tried to apologize, neither would her mouth. Rose had passed out due to chemical interference many times during her travels with the Doctor, but it was odd that this time her eyes would just not close. Her vision still seemed to be going dark, though. The bright, cheerful, sun-dappled forest grew darker by the second despite her wide open eyes.  
  
Then, she was out.  
  
-  
  
The Doctor’s mind was racing a million light-years per second. There were hundreds of escape routes, he knew exactly how to get back to the TARDIS, knew exactly how long it would take. He knew how long Rose could survive with the poison in the dart still running through her bloodstream. He knew for a fact that Rose was only unconscious - though she looked quite dead, and it shook him to the very core. He also, above everything, knew that if he could just have gotten the dart out of his neck, they would have been halfway back home by now.  
  
He would not lose consciousness, but he still had zero control over his body. His only hope was that whoever aimed these darts at them would remove them before - what? Execution?  
  
A shadow loomed over him from behind and the Doctor instinctively tried to look behind him, but his muscles failed to move. A male voice cut sharply through the natural noises of the forest. If he was not mistaken, the owner was Vellennii, specifically from the southernmost quarter of the planet if his dialect was to be trusted.  
  
None of it made sense.  
  
Vellen was four galaxies from Hasdeen. If this was the correct year he had plotted (which, he allowed, may have been wrong), the Vellennii had as much space travel capabilities as ancient Romans on Rose’s Earth. The poison tipping the blowdarts was native to this moon of Hasdeen, true, but the technology, primitive as it was, was neither Vellenni or Hasdeenish.  
  
Something was very wrong. The Vellennii were displaced temporally and spatially, displaying violent tendencies unlike the normal behavior of their species, and most importantly, were ambushing and abducting prisoners.  
  
Rose was completely limp as the tall creature lifted her roughly and slung her over his shoulder. Her eyes, still wide open, stared blankly into the distance. A second Vellennii, shorter and thicker than Rose’s captor, but still at least a foot taller than the Doctor, began carrying him. The long walk jostled his limbs and joints and made him wish for even the slightest modicum of control over his body.  
  
They were carried over a long stretch of forest until they reached a clearing. A few shelters had been constructed there, but it was clear the Vellennii considered this a temporary arrangement.  
  
Rose was dumped on the ground and he followed. Her hands were secured with a thick vine before the two aliens convened and the stockier one pulled the dart from Rose’s neck. She let out a weak groan of pain.  
  
The Doctor felt his arms being tugged behind him roughly until he assumed he was bound much the same way as Rose. The debilitating weight was lifted from all of his limbs at once and he rolled his neck to work out some of the stiffness.  
  
Before he could say anything - and really, what else could he do but talk? - a female Vellennii emerged from one of the smaller lean-tos and crouched in front of Rose.  
  
“What were you thinking, taking prisoners?” she hissed at the taller one. “Where are we to house them? What good will they do us?”  
  
“I’d like to know that myself,” he demanded, his voice hoarse. The Vellennii all looked startled to hear him speak, the three of them facing him at once.  
  
“Where have you come from, stranger?” the female asked, instead of answering his question.  
  
“Different places,” he evaded. “Where are you from?”  
  
The stocky one advanced on the Doctor. “You will be the one answering questions, stranger,” he growled, but the female one moved to silence him.  
  
“Roorkke, stop. He may answer our questions if we answer his.” She turned back to the Doctor. “We are from a land of fertile soil and rich ore. We were home before we were suddenly here. I will ask you again, however - where are you from?”  
  
The taller male strode over to the female. “Flleex, they smell different. The girl is not the same as him,” he told her urgently, mistrust flashing in his eyes as they traveled over Rose and the Doctor.  
  
“No, you’re right about that,” the Doctor said. “We’re different the same way you and I are different.”  
  
Flleex narrowed her eyes. “But you two are similar in shape and color. Explain.”  
  
The Doctor shook his head. “It’s just a simple base pattern of evolution throughout the stars. There’s no need to complicate things. What I really want to know, though, is how you three ended up this far out in the system with no warning.” He gave a little grin. “That must have been a bit unsettling, eh?”  
  
Roorkke sighed and came around in front of them. “We were miners,” he said gruffly. “Where we come from, we are good at what we do. Not like here.” He scowled. “Here we are savages who know nothing of the strange lands.” He gestured angrily at the trees and forest surrounding them. “Our duty requires us to traverse the depths of our soil, where it is hard and dark. We know the risks it carries, and have known many good friends who have perished in the tunnels.”  
  
Flleex bowed her head and rested a hand over her abdomen. “Peace to the free ones,” she murmured, and the other two repeated her. “Our friends and family are often lost to the ground, but we must not fear it; without the ground we cannot eat and we cannot warm ourselves.”  
  
The Doctor spared a glance at Rose. She was still unconscious, but there was color in her cheeks and her breathing was normal. He forced himself not to look at her eyes, so disconcertingly open. “What happened?” he asked.  
  
“We went into the tunnels one rotation ago. It was quick. A flash of light that no source underground would have emitted, and then the three of us were in this gods-be-damned place.”  
  
“Larraas,” the woman scolded.  
  
“They cannot hear us, Flleex,” the taller one said bitterly. “Who knows if they ever could? Would they have sent us here if they were listening and watching?” Flleex looked shocked, but soon turned to the Doctor as he spoke.  
  
“I can help you get home,” the Doctor said slowly, and all three exchanged glances, their mixed feelings evident. “Just one condition - I want to take a look at those tunnels.”


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group finds their way back to the TARDIS.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably a very meandering, aimless chapter, but I promise that more important stuff is going to happen next time. Till then!

Roorkke was the first to speak. “Should you bring us home, I will show you the way into the tunnels. But I will not go near the light-source again. There, you will be on your own.”  
  
“I understand.” The Doctor turned his attention to Flleex and Larraas. “If we’ve got a deal, I’d like to see if my friend is doing alright.”  
  
“The girl,” Flleex said. “Of course.” She moved around him to get at the vine.  
  
“How can we be sure he doesn’t intend to escape without helping us?” Larraas asked her. “We will keep the girl under our supervision until we have returned home.”  
  
Flleex looked torn. “Would you want that for your Glliirnas? Or little Hallnaab?”  
  
Larraas’s eyes widened. “Never! But, Flleex, these creatures are not family. They cannot be trusted.”  
  
The woman thought for a moment. “Very well. We will keep the girl until we are safe home. Is that clear, stranger?”  
  
The Doctor’s jaw clenched, but he nodded. As long as Rose was healthy and safe, he would help the Vellennii as best he could. Forcing a chipper tone, he told them, “Stranger is such a strong word. Just call me Doctor.”  
  
He watched as Flleex puzzled over his name. “Doctor? You are a physician?”  
  
He shrugged. “Of sorts.”  
  
“Very well. And her?”  
  
“Rose.”  
  
“Your kinds have very odd titles and names. Doctor and Rose.” With that proclamation, his vines loosened considerably, enough that he could slip out of them.  
  
Roorkke gripped Rose’s bindings tighter as the Doctor approached her. Before trying to rouse her, he tilted her head back to check her eyes for hyper-dilation common to overdosing on the Hasdeenish poison. Satisfied that her pupils were normal, he inspected the puncture wound in her neck. What he saw made his hearts constrict, but it was to be expected.  
  
The poison had irritated her skin, causing it to purple and bruise, and the way the dart had been ripped out had done her no favors either. Tiny lacerations around the initial wound were seeping fluid and blood, her body’s natural reaction to the foreign substance. Had it been sooner to the time the poison was introduced to her bloodstream, he might have tried to suck out the poison, but it would do nothing now.  
  
He still would have liked to get her an antibiotic so that her poison-weakened immune system could fight off any intruding bacteria, but without the TARDIS, it was a long shot.  
  
Because of the circumstances he needed her awake - now. He cradled her head and surreptitiously brought his fingers to her temples. The Vellennii most likely wouldn’t recognize the telepathy, but he didn’t want to take any chances on Rose’s security. He pushed into her consciousness with a wave of apology and a quick pulse of awareness.  
  
Rose gasped in awakening. “Blimey, what- oh, God, what happened?”  
  
He grinned in spite of himself. “Hello.”  
  
“Hello.” She returned the brilliant smile. “We gotta stop meeting like this,” she teased, but her tone was strained.  
  
“Oh, I dunno,” he drawled. “Not so bad, is it?”  
  
Rose groaned. “It’s either a headache or-“ she broke off, seeming to only just now notice that her hands were tied behind her back. She whipped her head around and, seeing Roorkke, paled considerably. “Are we captured again?” she muttered.  
  
He had to laugh. “No. Well, sort of. This is Flleex, Larraas, and that one there is Roorkke. We’re going to help them get home!”  
  
“Oh. Good.” Rose sounded a little faint, until she didn’t. “Wait, how come I’m the only one tied up?”  
  
-  
  
It took a good few minutes of explaining, very carefully leaving out the words “trans-spatial hyper-beam anomaly transporter rift” and even the names of the planets involved to relay the relevant information to Rose. She took it in stride, as usual, but wasn’t happy about having to be tied up - also pretty normal.  
  
In Rose’s opinion, it was definitely Not Her Fault, and therefore the whole being tied up and watched thing was getting old very quickly.  
  
She did have to admit that Flleex was a very charming woman, though. Kind and motherly and compassionate, and also, though none of the men knew, with child. Rose couldn’t imagine being pregnant and stuck on, say, Mars, so she made extra effort to reassure Flleex that all four of them would get back to their home safely.  
  
The Doctor was working with Roorkke and Larraas to clear away the evidence of their habitation. It only took about an hour, dwellings as primitive as they were, but the Doctor insisted that even the distant hints of those structures in the far future would have serious ramifications. “Some things can’t be changed,” he’d said darkly, in a voice that brooked no argument.  
  
As soon as the three finished with the cleanup, the Doctor had pulled out the sonic to get a read on their distance from the TARDIS. “We’ll have to walk about nine kliks west. Think you all can handle that?”  
  
“Can’t you just bring your ship to this location?” Larraas asked.  
  
The Doctor’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “As long as you lot insist on keeping Rose with you, we’re all going to travel together.”  
  
Flleex patted his shoulder. “It’s not far, Larraas. Surely if I can manage, you can.”  
  
He grumbled a little, but eventually Larraas acquiesced.  
  
Rose didn’t doubt the accuracy of the Doctor’s piloting most of the time, but she was grateful that he wouldn’t have the chance to accidentally somehow end up on one of the other moons of Hasdeen. The three Vellennii were pleasant enough (minus the whole being-kept-prisoner thing), and she didn’t want them to be stuck on this moon longer than they had to be.  
  
The rest of the afternoon was devoted to wandering around the forest, occasionally getting lost, and eventually stumbling onto the TARDIS - mostly by accident. The Vellennii were beginning to look doubtful of the Doctor’s abilities, but Rose was mainly just exasperated and tired of walking at the much taller creatures’ pace.  
  
Larraas, it turned out, was a wonderful story teller. As excited as they all were to get back, Larraas seemed the most grateful, and began telling Rose about his wife Glliirnas and his little daughter Hallnaab.  
  
While he was talking, Rose felt the ache of the rope around her wrist and in her calves fade into the distance. He told her of Vellenn and its vast plains, the bountiful harvest years, and described the silence and rich, earthy smell of the underground cavern system so intricately, Rose fancied she could almost reach out and touch them.  
  
Roorkke led her while he listened to Larraas’s stories with a wistful little smile on his lips and a faraway look in his saffron-colored eyes. Only Flleex seemed to tire of them and walked alongside the Doctor, casting strange glances at the sonic from the corner of her eye.  
  
After what felt like two hours, Rose gently interrupted Larraas. “Doctor,” she called from a little ways behind him and Flleex.  
  
He stopped and turned immediately. “Everything alright?” His eyes scanned her over unsubtly, lingering where the rope was tied round her wrist, and approached her.  
  
Her tongue flicked between her teeth. “Do you actually know where we are?”  
  
Color blossomed in his cheeks. “I - well, it would seem - that is, we’re not far,” he settled on.  
  
“And there’s no wildlife out here to attack us in the night?” She cast a pointed look at the sky, which was darkening.  
  
“Perfectly safe,” he replied flippantly.  
  
Rose knew that tone. That was the tone of her blue-eyed Doctor placating her, and on occasion Jack, when in truth he hadn’t the faintest clue.  
  
“If the TARDIS is near here, then maybe you can try to find her a little faster?”  
  
The Doctor ducked his head back to the sonic. “I’m trying, Rose.” A note of frustration entered his voice.  
  
Her voice softened. “I know. But you and I both know that you don’t know what’s out here, and if we don’t get to the TARDIS soon, those three are gonna think you’re pulling one over on them.”  
  
Rose saw his eyes harden and fall lower to her wrist. His jaw clenched as he lifted her hand to inspect the knot. In a quiet voice, he told her, “I could get you out of this. We could make a run for it-”  
  
She shook her head and cut him off. “No, we’re gonna help them. But we have to be do it quicker, yeah?”  
  
She could practically hear him thinking. “Can I borrow your key?” he asked suddenly, and Rose blinked in surprise.  
  
“Yeah, sure.” She reached for the chain round her neck and pulled the key from beneath her shirt. Without giving her the chance to remove it, the Doctor cupped it in one hand and pointed the sonic at it with the other.  
  
“Couldn’t you have just done this with yours?” Rose asked, bemused.  
  
There was a sparkle of amusement in the depths of his eyes. “I implanted a tracker in your key. Built in Rose-detector straight from the TARDIS. But-” he lifted her key to show it glowing, “-it works both ways.”  
  
The key gave off a faint hum and Rose’s eyes fell shut at the soothing tone. “So will it get louder as we get closer?”  
 “Yes, exactly.”  
  
She moved to unclasp the chain from around her neck, but the Doctor held up his hand. “Keep it; you know how deep my pockets are.”  
  
Rose chuckled. “Yeah, I do.”  
  
He sighed and fiddled with the knot. “Alright. Let’s get going.” He stepped back and looked at her expectantly.  
  
“Follow me,” she told the three Vellennii. “Now that we have a reliable way to track the ship,” she added, and Roorkke and Larraas laughed.  
  
“What does your ship look like?” Roorkke asked her, giving the rope some slack and letting her lead.  
  
“She’s beautiful,” Rose answered honestly. “She doesn’t look like anything else in the world. You’ll know what I mean once we get there.”  
  
“ _If_ we get there,” Flleex grumbled, sounding annoyed. “It feels like we’ve been walking after a northern hozaan.”  
  
The Doctor clucked his tongue. “Aren’t those a legend on Vellenn?”  
  
“Precisely.”  
  
“It sings?” Roorkke asked, puzzled. “How can it sing?”  
  
“She’s the best ship in the universe, is how,” Rose said with a little smile.  
  
This didn’t seem to satisfy him, but he let it drop anyway.  
  
The key grew hot in her hand, the humming reaching its peak. “Found her!” The TARDIS stood beside a wide tree and practically beckoned them forth.  
  
“Will we all fit?” Flleex questioned hesitantly. “It seems… small.”  
  
Rose and the Doctor exchanged grins.  
  



End file.
